Sanders’ unprecedented call for ‘justice and peace’ marks decline of lobby’s power

I make a point of not watching the Democratic debates—they’re simply too stressful for my system. I fear the yelling and name calling, there’s usually not much to learn anyway, and we have to be positioned to fry those bigger fish come November. Thursday was the same, but I’d had the TV on mute, just in case. And—this is critical—my brave friend Jamie, who does gird her loins and watch, texts throughout to keep me updated. When she texted that they were moving on to Israel/Palestine, the sound went on.

A moment not to be missed. Sanders:

“There comes a time when if we pursue justice and peace, we are going to have to say that Netanyahu is not right all of the time.”

So obvious as to be banal, you say? Not in this context, when a candidate for president from one of the two major parties finally talks about justice and peace during a prime-time national debate—and then doesn’t back down. It’s unprecedented: as many in the audience cheered him on as cheered for Hillary.

Let’s be clear: no political candidate—not Democrat, not Republican—has ever ventured into this zone during a campaign for such high office. The article today by Jason Horowitz in the New York Times nails it, writing that Sanders said that Israel had

“every right in the world to destroy terrorism.” “But,” he said, “we had in the Gaza area — not a very large area — some 10,000 civilians who were wounded and some 1,500 who were killed.” [And he stood by his use of the word “disproportionate.”]

The applause and cheers that accompanied Mr. Sanders’s answers — someone yelled “Free Palestine!” — might have been the most vocal signs yet of shifts in the Democratic Party. 

In a sense, Hillary’s pathetic blubbering of all the tired talking points is as much emblematic of the collapse of the ancien régime among Democrats as Bernie’s talk of justice and peace. There she was saying it was all Arafat’s fault for nixing the “holy Barak offer” (as Tamar used to call it), a self-serving, long ago discredited theory advanced by Bill C. and the Israelis. Or that Israel turned over the keys to Gaza in 2005– “They turned the keys over to the Palestinian people”– so they could have had a great little state. There’s she’s channeling Thomas Friedman’s nonsense that Gaza could have been a little Singapore once Gaza was no longer occupied (and had “the keys,” as Hillary put it so succinctly). It’s true that Gaza is no longer colonized in the technical sense, because in 2005 Sharon dismantled the settlements and removed the settlers, who had been a great burden on Israel. (And without the settlers in Gaza, Israel is free to bomb to its heart’s content.) 

But Gaza is as occupied as ever. And Hillary’s vocabulary doesn’t include the word “occupied.”

The bottom line: even before the debate and before this presidential campaign, unease over Israeli policies within the Democratic Party was rising. As Peter Beinart is quoted in the Times article, which is titled “Criticizing Israel, Bernie Sanders Highlights Split Among Jewish Democrats”:

“What Bernie said last night, and the crowd’s response, were a sign of things to come.”

And the Friends of the Israeli Occupation know it.

Eliot Engel, Democratic congressman from the Bronx, resorted to the desperate old name-calling, labeling Bernie’s comments, “disgraceful and reprehensible.” Further, Horowitz writes, 

Andy Bachman, a prominent Brooklyn progressive rabbi [but not really all that progressive], said the energetic applause at Mr. Sanders’s criticism of Israel “spoke to this growing rift in the Democratic Party — it was proof of a major crisis in the Jewish community that no major Jewish organization has resolved or figured out to handle.”

Some advice to those, including the liberal Zionists like Rabbi Bachman, who are wringing their hands over “how to handle” the crisis: as long as you view the crisis as something to be solved by hiring a better PR agency and writing some new talking points, you’ll never be able to “handle” it.

Let me channel Bill Clinton on this one: it’s about the policies, Stupid.

So yes, the change in public opinion in this country has been glacial, but it’s happening. Sanders actually spoke truths—and here’s the crux of it: he will live to tell. That’s the news. A lot of Democrats and younger Americans in general, including many Jews, are breaking out of the old stranglehold. And the Democratic old guard, slow on the uptake, needs to take note: AIPAC is essentially a Republican organization. There are those who say Bernie could afford to do this because he’s going to lose the primary in New York anyway. Who cares? He had to think it first. And then he had to say it. And he did.

Does this major change in discourse (and more) mean there’s a rosy future ahead for Israel and Palestine? Alas, no. The Israelis just this week announced more settlement construction. They are as determined as ever to go careening over that cliff.
Nevertheless, it’s been fully ten years since John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt published their groundbreaking “The Israel Lobby” in the London Review of Books in March 2006 (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby).
And here we are. Today’s Israel lobby is no longer the lethal third rail of American politics. And everyone knows it.
In the words of the great Sam Cooke (in the 1964 song that became an anthem of the civil rights movement), “A Change Is Gonna’ Come” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBlaMOmKV4).
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I would divide the period since 67 as follows:
til 73 and the yom kippur war.
Til 78 and the peace with egypt.
Til 82 and the war in lebanon.
Til 87 and the first intifada.
Til 93 and the handshake on the white house lawn.
Til 2000: failed camp David talks, 2nd intifada followed in 2001 by sept. 11, followed by the war in iraq.
Til 2006 sharon suffers stroke.
I would not attempt to measure aipac’s strength, but rather focus upon the inconclusive nature of resolution 242. The gist of 242 negotiate and solve it, without specific parameters or certainly ambiguous enough language to let the resolution remain a text, an unimplemented text for 48 plus years.
If we admit that the cold war was the basic cause for the US tilt towards crafting a text rather than a course of action, I think we get closer to the truth. Yes nixon’s 1st sect’y of state Rogers was interested in a resolution, but the real power was with kissinger to whom a resolution of the conflict made little sense in cold war terms. (Kissinger played chess with the conflict, it fit into his game as another hot spot where leverage could be exerted and an advantage gained). The post cold war world which began in 90-91 with the first Gulf War on the other hand is really an unclear period compared to the bipolar superpower conflict, this new world has a new dynamic. So support for Israel is 1. dependent on the chaos of the Arab world ,but 2. otherwise not a natural part of an overall strategy, because post cold war there is no comprehensive overall strategy.
Aipac thus has to prove that support for Israel fits into a plan, when there is in fact no plan. Then we are left with “democracy” “common values” both of which are not a strattegy, but more like groping for a strategy and undercut by the post 67 occupation. Aipac’s job is either impossible (no overarching strategy to mesh with) or very difficult (a disenfranchised population explained as a temporary problem in it 49th year. ) so don’t blame the lobby: blame history and the occupation.

” so don’t blame the lobby: blame history and the occupation. “

“Don’t blame me
For falling in love with you.
I’m under your spell
But how can I help it?
Don’t blame me.”

Zionists, like a colossal Urkel standing athwart history, saying “Did I do that?”

Pseudo-quote: “And no Jewish organization has figured out how to deal — with the new (horrible) (anti-Zionist) situation.”

Too bad they cannot use the Zionist-word to describe themselves: it would have been correct to say that “no Zionist organization has figured out how to deal — with the new (horrible) (anti-Zionist) situation.”

It still makes me angry — why I cannot imagine, they’ve been doing it so long — that they say Jewish when they should say Zionist.

How should they handle it. Seems the Jewish community is intent on doing the same activity. talk to my relatives and they have a innocent “Who Us” reaction to the fact their community is now seen as hateful racist savages. The think they can “Do Something” about everyone seeing their corrupt criminal enterprise for what it is. Jews here at my house call it Apartheid. Maybe they could try giving peace a chance? Not likely. Bu they need to “do something” about it. We’ll be watching for that. Are all the pro peace anti Israeli Jews in Boston I know a fact or just my imagination? If so they need top do something about that, as peace is not an option for the pro Israel crowd.

although not receiving as much attention from the media, on the issue of the ongoing war(s) in Syria, the differences between Linton and Saunders were just as stark as their differences on Palestine/Israel, especially when Clinton said she supports a no fly zone in Syria and Sanders was against it. Additionally, both her war hawk nature and her duplicity came through in her comments on her role in the U.S./NATO war on that country. Whereas in prior debates she didn’t hesitate to take credit for bringing on that war, at the Thurs. debate she ended up backing off a bit by saying it was President Obama who made the call. Perhaps her pollsters told her that the public is now disillusioned with the war in Syria war, and to put at least some of the blame on Obama.